ESF school group, 3 other foreign educational institutions failed to enrol enough non-local students during pandemic, Hong Kong education authority says
- Education Bureau says it will remind schools to observe student mix requirements or face consequences
- Amid pandemic some non-local students might have moved back home with their families, bureau says
Hong Kong’s largest international schools group and three other foreign education institutions failed to admit the required number of non-local students for two consecutive years as the Covid-19 pandemic gripped the city, according to authorities.
The Education Bureau said it would tell schools to meet the requirement on the make-up of their student bodies, warning it could terminate or refuse to renew their service agreements and take back their locations.
The bureau raised the required proportion of non-local students enrolled in international schools subject to a service agreement with the government to an average of 70 per cent in 2009, up from 50 per cent. The percentage was temporarily relaxed in recent years for several newly established international schools because of the pandemic.
“Amid the Covid-19 epidemic, some non-local students might move back to their hometowns with their families, resulting in a higher than usual dropout rate among non-local students,” the bureau said in reply to a question from lawmakers on Thursday.
Hong Kong is home to 54 international schools, including one that caters to students with special needs. In the current academic year, the schools, excluding the special needs one, provided 46,253 places and admitted 40,626 students.
Non-local students accounted for about 66 per cent of pupils at international schools, while the rest were locals.
The government said that in the current term, four of 16 international schools subjected to a service agreement failed to meet the threshold for non-local students, which ranged from 50 to 98 per cent.
